Monday, 18 July 2011

With their school field trip over, it's back to the daily worries about how to make Kissuiso (and the wider town of Yunosagi) profitable once again as we hit episode sixteen of Hanasaku Iroha - despite her occasional brainwaves on the matter, when it comes to Ohana to give her thoughts to the local committee of inn owners about what young people want from an inn, her ideas are... largely unrealistic, let's say. Unrealistic, and cake-based.

Anyhow, this all seems like a trifling matter in comparison to Enishi's latest plan - an idea which shockingly Kissuiso's manager agrees to, deciding to let her son take the lead for once. The plan in question is an ambitious one too it seems, involving allowing the use of Kissuiso as the location for filming a movie while allowing members of the inn's staff roles in said film - even Jiroumaru finds a place in proceedings as a writer for part of the script, which perhaps isn't the best idea in the world given his proclivities, but oh well.

Thus, for the rest of this episode excitement descends upon Kissuiso as those involved work hard to prepare the inn whilst pondering their possible acting roles - even Minko can't help but get a little caught up in it all, even if she is only pondering the prospect of seeing Tohru on the big screen. Behind all this is arguably the more serious matter at hand within this episode - Enishi's desperate bid to be noticed and acknowledged by his mother, possibly surpassing his errant sister in the process. All of this could well be put to one side however, as you can't help but feel that there's some drama just around the corner come the end of this episode.

While it's all a bit far-fetched and hard to believe, this is another of those episode of Hanasaku Iroha that gets by simply by being kind of fun as we watch its characters scurrying around and largely enjoying themselves. Where this story arc is headed next is anyone's guess, but as is so often the case with this series it doesn't seem to matter too much while it's all being carried so adeptly by its cast between its blend of comedy and more serious fare.